


Two Evenings in 1938

by Sunchales



Category: To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:38:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunchales/pseuds/Sunchales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scout continues growing up in Maycomb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Evenings in 1938

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scarletlobster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletlobster/gifts).



> Disclaimer: _To Kill a Mockingbird_ was written by Harper Lee and is the property of Grand Central Publishing, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group. (At least, my copy of it is.) I own no characters from the novel and do not wish to disrespect Harper Lee or the memory of her loved ones. 
> 
> Also, Scout’s perspective disappears in the final scene. She does not follow Calpurnia…but you, the reader, do. 
> 
> Lastly, be warned that my prose is not as good as Harper Lee's.

_Winter_  


Christmas had passed, and the dreariest time of year descended upon Maycomb and the rest of the hemisphere. We were fortunate that, in our corner of the country, winter dreariness translated to dullness and the resuming of the school year rather than blizzards, but the months between Christmas and spring had little to recommend them in any case. Not wanting to while away the first quarter of the year waiting for the daisies to bloom, I asked Atticus for his generosity in allowing me to take lessons from Miss Greta, a recent arrival who had advertised her services as a voice teacher a few months ago in the church bulletin.  


I held the sheet music up to my face. The words printed on the pages were in a language completely unknown to me, but I had the word of my teacher that knowing the meaning of the lyrics one sang was immaterial as long as one could pronounce the words properly.  


As I opened my mouth to form the first word, I remembered my teacher’s injunction to warm up before launching into a solo. My protestations that singing vowel sounds before moving on to words sounded silly both to the singer herself and those within earshot of her had met with derisive laughter from Miss Greta, so I banished all other parties inside the house from my mind and began to sing a syllable in my middle register.  


Jem entered the bedroom as I worked my way to the end of the one octave that Miss Greta had declared my tessitura.  


“Scout, I can’t concentrate on my math homework with your warblin’,” he said.  


“Miss Greta says I’ve got to vocalize or I’ll never be a good singer. I have to warm up first; all singers do. Even when they’ve gotten through the ranks and start singing at the Met, they have to practice every day.”  


“Well, can’t you warm up outside?”  


Unlike the January of two years ago, this one was barely warm enough to tolerate for twenty or thirty minutes before necessity dictated a scramble back into the nearest building.  


“More people would hear me then. If you don’t like my singing, then how do I know anyone else will? Besides, I might disturb the peace if I sing outside.”  


He groaned. “You’re disturbing the peace in here.”  


“But Jem, I’ve just got to practice. Besides, the acoustics outside are bad. Miss Greta said not to sing in places that have bad acoustics.”  


Jem rolled his eyes. “What are you learning to sing for, anyway?”  


“I’m going to New York City.”  


“What, to be a chorus girl?” he asked with a smirk. “I can’t imagine you in tights and a short little dress.”  


I scowled. “No, I’m going to be an opera singer. Atticus says I have the spirit of Thespis inside me—and Diana, but Thespis is just as free.”  


With a final sigh, he waved his arms in the air. “Well, I’m too old to fight you. Guess I’ll come back to my homework later.” He walked out of the room through the open door.  


Emerging the victor in a disagreement with my brother had lost some of its thrill. Still, I remained secure in the knowledge that the Goddess of the Hunt smiled upon me—and that Jem had spoken more than four or five words to me today.  


***  


Despite her European origins, Miss Greta managed to carve a niche for herself in Maycomb. My attempts to pry into her life story in detail tended to become derailed by her insistence on keeping me on-task, though this particular afternoon in her rose velvet parlor proved modestly fruitful.  


“You will develop a fine alto voice some day,” she said after I had pleased her with my rendition of a French folk song. “But you must continue to practice.”  


“How will I know when I’ve gotten to have that fine alto voice?”  


She smiled. “We will see. It is fortunate that you have started so young, for at seventeen you will be singing in two or perhaps even three octaves when other aspiring singers are still struggling with their first.”  


“What about you, ma’am? When did you get to have the voice you do?”  


“I cannot remember a time when I was not surrounded by singing. My mother sang to us the songs of her childhood when she played the piano; my father sang songs from the opera, and I would feel incomplete without music every day of my life.  


“But I will tell you one thing, if you promise to tell no one: I do feel complete without my husband. Perhaps it is not right to admit that to you, but I cannot help it. He can stay in his little apartment in Manhattan, with all the rats.”  


This sudden burst of fire from a woman I previously believed as calm as pond water on a warm day reminded me of the superficiality inherent in many first impressions. As if to spare me a response, the grandfather clock against the wall then chimed five.  


“I believe it’s time for me to go,” I said. “Thank you for having me.”  


"It was a pleasure.”  


The harsh clanging of the doorbell resounded through the parlor, and I ran to answer whoever stood on the other side. Opening the door revealed a middle-aged woman clad in a plum-colored dress and holding up a covered white casserole dish.  


“Hello, ma’am.”  


“Hello,” she said with a smile. “I came to see Frau Goldenstein.”  


“Excuse me, ma’am?”  


She opened her mouth again, but Miss Greta appeared behind me within a matter of seconds and lifted the casserole dish from her guest’s hands.  


“Hello, Martha. This is my voice student Scout. Come on inside!”  


Miss Martha followed her hostess to the kitchen, which connected to the parlor by way of a door. Before they retreated to devour the casserole, Miss Greta looked at me.  


“You are welcome to stay, my child.”  


I shook my head. “Thank you, ma’am, but I need to go home.”  


“I see. Farewell, then.”  


“Goodbye, ma’am.”  


I turned and walked out of the parlor but paused on the doorstep. Immediately, the two women began chattering away, as if each one’s presence gladdened the other so much that everyone else on Earth could die and they would still be content.  


***  


That evening, after a pleasant but otherwise nondescript dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes, I approached my father, who sat by the radio reading a newspaper.  


“Atticus, if my teacher’s old name was Frau Goldenstein, why do I have to call her something else? She’s not a Maycomb lady, so why does she use a name that sounds like a Maycomb lady’s?”  


Atticus glanced up from his newspaper. “Call her what she wants to be called, Scout. You owe her that.”  


“But you’re already paying her. Why do we owe her anything else?”  


“We owe her exactly what we owe everyone else on Earth. Not calling her what she wants to be called would be denying her the most basic human currency, and that’s just as important as money.”  


I did not ask what this most elemental unit of human currency was. “One of her neighbors called her Frau Goldenstein, though.”  


“Then her neighbor probably had permission from Miss Greta to call her that. If you don’t know, then I’d advise you not to risk it.”  


Somehow I didn’t think it wise to incur her displeasure by asking.  


_Summer_  


Summer summoned Dill to Maycomb once again. Our days of acting out Tarzan and Hardy Boys stories had ended, though trickles of the ape-man and the young detectives still ran through us—especially now, when we braved the edges of the neighborhood and made a perilous trek to a nearby wooded area. Now we sat beneath a weeping willow, facing a pond. The July heat had extracted what felt like pints of sweat from both of us, and our clothes fairly stuck to our skin. I leaned against the tree trunk while Dill tilted to one side, nearly falling on my shoulder.  


Sunlight glinted off the surface of the water. A dragonfly darted through the tall grass that grew at the pond’s edge until a bullfrog emerged from the muddy ground and devoured the hapless insect with a flick of the tongue.  


“Dill, let’s go to New York City.”  


“What, now? I used up most of my money on the ticket here.”  


“No, when we grow up. Miss Greta’s been to Manhattan. She says you can find anything there, and there’s a million restaurants and stores and theaters and….”  


“I heard that, too. But if your voice teacher says that New York City is such a great place, then what is she doing all the way down here?”  


“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me. Maybe she likes the weather, or maybe she has family down here.”  


At my mention of the word “family,” Dill averted his eyes from me and stared at his shoes. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he startled.  


“I’m sorry,” he said. “You know, I was thinking…I’d love to go to New York City with you, even if we don’t get married…but if we do, I don’t want us to have babies.”  


“That’s all right. I don’t want to have babies, and I don’t think Miss Greta does, either.”  


Dill’s sudden toothy grin made me chuckle, which he seemed to accept as an additional affirmation of his desire not to reproduce.  


It occurred to me much later that Dill would grow up to be the sort of man who preferred not to have a wife, or who would accept affection from a woman so she could introduce him to her knitting circle or accompany him to the theater. He accorded me all the tenderness a young boy of his temperament could give a girl his age—or any age. Perhaps something about my enthusiasm for playing Tarzan and investigating ostensibly haunted houses in the middle of the night drew him to me. If I had exhibited the raw material of a society lady upon our first meeting, he would have passed me by like a Mississippi train passing a dilapidated farmhouse. He made me ponder, too, if Atticus had erred in some way when he claimed that all men had lusted after a woman at some point in their lives. As strange as it felt to accuse my father of misunderstanding anything about human nature, I had no choice but to question one of his assertions even back then. Miss Greta’s situation also made much more sense to me under this light, though I could have intuited from firsthand experience that womanhood did not confer a concomitant desire for lifetime male companionship.  


“Well, you want to go back to the house?” I offered.  


“Sure.”  


With a few grunts, he drew himself to his feet. I linked my arm with his, and we began the journey home.  


Close together, we walked into the kitchen, where Calpurnia stood setting a piping-hot pie atop a pristine white dish on the center of the table. Four other plates lay to the side. She looked up from the table to greet us, but something about her smile seemed forced.  


“What’s wrong, Cal?” I asked her.  


Rather than answer, she cut into the pie and produced a crisp-looking slice of apple baked beneath a flaky crust, which she slid onto a plate.  


“You have your private business, and I have mine,” she said as she pulled out another slice and slung it onto the plate beside Dill’s. She then cut a third slice and set it on the plate in front of her.  


“I’ll get the milk,” I said, running over to open the refrigerator door. When I turned around, holding the freshly chilled milk bottle, I saw Dill standing behind me.  


"Scout, I'd love to go to New York City with you. Let's solve a mystery when we get there. We can write a book together!"  


"Why, sure."  


***  


When the sun set that evening, Calpurnia gathered her purse in one hand and a bundle of peppermint poinsettias in the other. The color scheme was perhaps too festive for the occasion she was going to, but they were Tom Robinson’s favorite flowers, to hear his wife tell it.  


As she crossed the path to the church, she wondered how many other makeshift tombstones First Purchase would need to erect—or had already erected--in a parishioner’s honor. That they had to create even one was bad enough.  


Finally, she walked into the small graveyard behind the First Purchase building. No one else trod the earth, although heaps of violets, daisies, and purple poinsettias lay in front of the stone marked THOMAS ROBINSON. Maybe she was early.  


Though her joints were not what they once were, Calpurnia knelt before the tombstone and placed her poinsettias amidst the other flowers.  


 _The first shall be last and the last shall be first_ , she thought, folding her hands to begin a prayer.


End file.
